Cities are growing fast. By 2050 up to sixty eight percent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. This rapid urbanisation is inevitably resulting in complex challenges around cities’ governance; the provision of services such as energy, water and sanitation; housing; transport and telecommunication, and more broadly infrastructure. This means that new tools and technologies will be needed to improve the performance and resilience of infrastructure and city systems. In that context, The UK collaboratorium for infrastructure and cities – UKCRIC – is an integrated research capability with a mission to underpin the renewal, sustainment and improvement of infrastructure and cities in the UK and elsewhere.

The aim of this online workshop is to bring together the next generation of research leaders along with current academic and industrial practitioners to catalyse new research initiatives in infrastructure and cities for the benefit of all citizens. The event will highlight how the three UKCRIC strands (test facilities, urban observatories, and digital twins) support the infrastructure and cities research community by stimulating innovation through multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration. The workshop comprises a professional-development opportunity for early career participants to learn about the UKCRIC missions which encompass the themes of resilience, sustainability, business models, governance and society; to become better informed about the future challenges that infrastructures and urban systems will face; and to forge new research ideas and initiatives. Attendees are welcome from academia, industry, and public bodies.

Who should attend?

Early career professionals with an interest in infrastructure and city futures who want to learn more about the various ways in which UKCRIC supports infrastructure and cities research, discover the research capacities of UKCRIC facilities, and understand how they could use these for their future research projects. A balance of attendees from academia, the public sector, and industry will be registered.

Before the event, participants will be asked to send to the organiser a short paragraph (50 words max) about their current research to support an introductory activity and provide opportunities to discuss how their experience and skills align with the four UKCRIC missions encompassing the themes of resilience, sustainability, business models, governance and society. This will also help the organisers gauge participants’ experience and research background and adapt their delivery accordingly and evaluate how attendees’ experiences and skills can be brought together more effectively during the activity sessions.

Fees: This event is free to attend.

Programme

09:30 Registration

09:50 Welcome. Professor Anastasios Sextos, Professor of Earthquake Engineering, University of Bristol.

09:55 Presentation. Designing resilient cities and systems. Caroline Field, Arup, UK.

10:15 Ice breaker activity

10:35 Break

10:45 Presentation. UKCRIC test facilities, observatories and modelling platform. Professor Paul Jeffrey, Professor of Water Management at Cranfield University.

11:00 Activity I – Scoping research ideas and opportunities for collaboration. Professor Paul Jeffrey and workshop organisers.

11:20 Feedback and regrouping if needed. Professor Anastasios Sextos, Professor Paul Jeffrey .

11:25 Activity II – Scoping research ideas and opportunities for collaboration. Professor Anastasios Sextos and workshop organisers.

11:45 Research project and consortia pitches - including Q&A. Professor Paul Jeffrey and workshop organisers.

12:20 Feedback. Professor Anastasios Sextos, Professor Paul Jeffrey.

12:25 “Early-career champions” presentation. Dr Neil Carhart, Lecturer in Infrastructure Systems, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol.

12:45 Open discussion and feedback. Professor Anastasios Sextos, Professor Paul Jeffrey.

13:00 Close.

Note from the organisers

We will make all reasonable efforts to deliver the workshop as described above, but we reserve the right to change the event programme and/or speakers at any time and without prior notice. We also reserve the right to cancel the event for any reason including but not limited to situations where the workshop is under-subscribed, it becomes difficult for us to deliver the intended content, or for other reasons resulting from events, circumstances or causes beyond our reasonable control. If the event is cancelled, delegates will be informed of the event cancellation via email.